Sundays are often pretty quiet around the Hive and perhaps weekends in general - I guess some people have lives - or have too much of a hangover to sit at the keyboard. I have neither, so here I am :)
Sometimes it is good to just talk and when I have some space where I can actually speak without waking people up, I think I will start streaming a little and perhaps doing some Q&A's - I think everyone is comfortable enough working remotely by now and it might be a bit of fun. You have seen me write, how much do you reckon I can talk?
I was asked the other day what I see as the long-term benefit of staking Hive is as curation is unlikely to be enough of a drawcard far into the future for all participants. There are several points of benefit, but I see the ability to use stake as a direct investment vehicle one of the most compelling, to be able to buy into a project through voting. But, this is only one aspect of it.
As @rollandthomas added in my post about having skin in the game:
The risk is not being somewhat invested. If you think about it, it really circa 2001 all over again. Meaning the next Amazon, Apples, etc are being born now in the crypto space...and we know how those companies turned out.
Yes, we know how they turned out, but that is easy in hindsight - I woulda, coulda, shoulda - but the fact is that most people in the world didn't even know about these companies early on and even if they did, didn't have the ability to invest into them as the gateways weren't available to all.
Looking forward, it is incredibly hard to predict the next unicorn company because, there are so many to choose from and so many dynamic factors in play that making a choice and investing in is very difficult and, the risk is high. Not only is there high risk, even if successful, the investment capital will be locked away for a long period of time while the company goes from startup to the moon, or most likely, to a slow and fiery death.
I see Hive as a go between position that allows for direct investment if one chooses through staked voting or delegation, but the principle itself isn't lost and it can be retracted at any point. What is lost is the potential to vote on or delegate to something else - every opportunity has a cost. Not only is the principle not lost however, it is going to benefit from other investments that it may not even know about.
For example,
Two Hive investors 1 and 2 support two different Hive projects A and B, respectively with 100,000 HIVE POWER. After a year, Project A performs dismally and fails utterly and Project B performs very well and gets a lot of market attention. While Investor 1 has forgone potential to do different with that 100K HIVE POWER, at the end of the year, they still hold it. Investor 2 has made good profits from the Project as an early backer and not only has their 100K, but potentially other values like an SMT or fiat or whatever. But, if Project B is successful, even though Investor 1 didn't invest directly into it or perhaps doesn't even know it exists, the value it brings to Hive will benefit their stake - as it will benefit the stake of all stakeholders equally in accordance with the stake held.
This means that while an investor can directly back projects (many if they choose to split into percentages) with their stake, they are also able to simultaneously mitigate risk through their stake being invested in Hive, making the Hive ecosystem much like an index fund of all applications and businesses built upon it. One hyper successful experience that generates enormous interest and demand, supercharges the entire platform from both a price perspective as well as an infrastructure view - where developers can build upon it.
Once that first crypto unicorn arrives in a space that doesn't charge 30% for sales (like Apple and Goggle stores), more developers arrive, more endusers splash over the rim of their first experience and into others. The market place builds around a growing mass of participants and all Hive holders will benefit, according to their stake size. A rising tide lifts all boats.
An Apple, an Amazon a Rovio or Supercell gets created on Hive and the moon will be a distant dot behind us. Hive has the potential to be a true ecosystem that supports users at all layers, an incubator and testing ground for applications, a meetup point for handshakes between business and investors, a talent pool of creatives and developers and of course, an audience that is often also invested in the good outcomes of the applications.
While developers might compete for application attention, investors in Hive shouldn't really care that much what goes big, as long as something does. And, the cool thing is that one isn't investing into the potential unicorns only, the holding of Hive stake supports all who make the attempt in some way and all that add value, add it to all investors. This means that if 100 applications are built and half fail early on and one does very well, the other 49 will add value on a sliding scale from 1 down to near zero, but all will add something.
Using 100 as the base for the number 1 application and 1 the bottom for the 50th - 5 might do quite well and add 20 each, 10 might do well and add 10 each, 15 might do okay and add 5 each and 19 will survive and add 1 each. The "unicorn" in this hypothetical added 100 - which is 5x more than the closest, but The other 49 combined to add 294 - together, almost 3x as much. People love to worship the unicorns, nothing wrong with coming just being a fancy horse.
The decentralization of Hive encourages the development of this kind of model with it all being carried by the Hive infrastructure and supported by Hive investors and the Hive community. As said, it becomes a true ecosystem in many, many ways and has a working decentralized economy to boot.
This doesn't just happen though. The infrastructure has to be secure, reliable and stable. The developers have to be active, innovative and willing to act like real startups to attract investors. The investors need to be mature, think long and hard about what adds value - and they would probably come to the conclusion that what Hive needs is endusers, not just investors, not just contributors or developers to build applications - an audience to actually consume what is created.
Building an audience is the biggest challenge facing Hive, not retaining creatives. The creatives that can't make it through the gauntlet of a startup likely won't be able to survive in a dynamic and competitive environment anyway. An audience however has to be attracted away from where they are currently consuming, which is very difficult as they are already consuming a lot and much of it is forced down their throat by centralized curation. It is where their friends are, it is polished and pretty, it is convenient - it is risk free.
Are people starting to wake up to the real costs of free media?
At least some of us have and I think more are making the turn.
The future of Hive doesn't just bring in the potential of investing into the latest round of unicorn experiences, it gives the opportunity to fundamentally shift the world economy by encouraging investment and ownership of content and creations by everyone, including the consumers themselves. This means that the value generated can be just as enormous as all of the centralized experiences, the difference being is that the benefits will flow onto all participants in some way, not just the 0.1%.
It might not make you obscenely wealthy, but it would create a richer world in many ways and for many more.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]